


I Walk The Line Of Great Unknowns

by Serie11



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Letters, Reveal Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 05:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3756733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo runs a hand down her face and turns back to the table where she’d put the letter down. God, it’s so like Henry, leaving a letter of farewell, of all things. A letter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Walk The Line Of Great Unknowns

**Author's Note:**

> My first Forever Fic!  
> Title is from The Boxer Rebellion's brilliant song, New York. I highly recommend that you all go and listen to it - and if it sounds familiar, that's because it was used in episode one.  
> Now read this and enjoy some sad feelings.

Henry finishes the letter with a flourish from his pen, signing his name smoothly. He looks at the curling of the letters, how the M at the beginning of Morgan fades into the rest of the letters, yet remaining tastefully distinguishable.

He thinks it’s time to leave this name behind.

He’s had nearly two hundred and fifty years with it. In the grand scheme of things, he knows that in time that won’t seem like a lot. But it’s been his whole life, and it means something to him, now. It was the name his parents called him by. The family crest is on his pocket watch, the only thing remaining from that time in his life, is Morgan. Abigail and Abraham had that name.

Maybe that’s the main reason he wants to leave it behind.

Abraham’s funeral was yesterday. He saw his son put in the ground in the cemetery a few blocks from where they lived when he was a child, and Henry isn’t ashamed to say that he cried.

This name has served him well, over the years. But with technology increasing, he has to leave it behind. This life stands out among all of the others – not only is it the longest time he’s stayed in one place since Abigail, but he made connections here. Jo. Lucas. Mike.

But he has to leave. He’s been here for too long already. His co-workers are bound to start commenting on his unchanged appearance soon. And with Abe gone, there’s nothing keeping him here anymore. Nothing tying him to New York except memories he can’t stand to think about, but are the only things he has left.

He makes sure that the ink on the paper is dry before he folds it. He puts the pieces of paper that make up his farewell letter into an envelope, and writes _Jo_ on the outside of it. He owes her an explanation, after all. Even if he’s not going to be able to tell it to her, face to face.

He goes over what’s in his bag one more time, making sure that he has all that he needs. A few changes of clothes, all the cash he has on hand, the fake passport and ID. A single way plane ticket to Uganda.

He’s bringing his few photos of Abigail and Abraham with him, of course. He’ll try to hold onto those for as long as he can, but they are simply images. Nothing can replace the real thing.

He has all of his medical supplies. He’s decided that he’s going to be a doctor again, this time. Helping people stay alive should distract him sufficiently. It’s worked in the past, and he wants to scratch the itch between his shoulder blades that’s telling him to go out and help, to use his curse for something useful. He needs it again in his life, even though he swore off it what seems like a lifetime ago.

He’s standing in the middle of the antiques shop for the last time, committing the space to memory, when the door chimes open.

“We’re closed,” Henry calls out, before turning to see who it is.

“Not for me, I hope,” Jo says. She smiles at him, but she hasn’t seen his luggage yet. Her face falls when she does, and he sighs.

“Jo,” he tries to start, but she interrupts him.

“Henry, you don’t have to do this,” she says. “I know that losing Abe was hard on you, but running away isn’t the answer.”

_You don’t know how wrong you are, Jo. Running away is the only answer I have left._

“Jo, I can’t stay here anymore,” Henry says softly. He picks up the envelope with her name on it and hands it to her. “I was going to leave this for you. You deserve to know why.”

Jo looks down at the heavy paper in her hands. “I don’t want a letter, Henry. I don’t _need_ a letter, because you’re not leaving.”

Henry looks at her. “Jo, there are some things that you don’t know about me. I explain them all in that letter – what you do with that information is truly up to you. I would hope that you wouldn’t share it with anyone, but you may. I doubt you will, however.”

“Henry, come out with me. We can go somewhere and talk.” She puts the letter down on the table next to her, next to the case with his gun in it. He’s been deliberating over whether to take it or not, wondering if the temptation will be too much, if he will test Adam’s theory about it being the only thing able to kill him.

“Jo, I have to do this,” he tells her.

She stares at him for a few seconds silently. “I can understand if you need to get away from it all for a while, but this isn’t a ‘I need space but I’m coming back.’ This is ‘I’m leaving, and I’m leaving forever.’”

“Yes,” Henry says heavily. “It is.”

Jo takes a few steps towards him. “You just need some time to adjust, that’s all,” she tells him.

“I have too much time to adjust,” Henry mutters, looking at his feet. Jo comes over to stand in front of him and he has no choice but to look up at her. Her eyes are worried and concerned, and Henry once again grits his teeth, not believing how he’d let so many people here get close to him.

“Just think about all the years you’ve had with us,” Jo says. “We’ve only known each other for, what is it, nearly three years now? Henry, you can’t just leave that.”

_Three years is nothing._

“I have to. Just. Read the letter,” Henry manages to say. “And please don’t hate me for what’s in there. Abraham wanted me to tell you so many times…” He trails off, looking at the letter. It seems too small for all the weight it holds.

Jo slowly wraps her arms around him, and Henry buries his head in her shoulder, needing the comfort. They stand like that for a time before Henry leans back. Jo lets him go reluctantly.

Henry walks around her to take his gun out of its case and put it in his suitcase. He closes it and makes sure that it’s locked before reaching for the scarf next to it and wrapping it around his neck.

“I’m sorry for all the years that I’ve lied to you, Jo.” Henry says quietly. She looks lowers her eyebrows at him, confused, and he doesn’t blame her. “I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. It will all make sense soon. Please, though, don’t make too much of a fuss about it.” He sighs deeply. “Everything in that letter is true. Please, believe that. Please.”

“Okay,” Jo says slowly. “Henry, you’re starting to freak me out. Look, you’re not going anywhere, alright?”

Henry shakes his head. “Jo, thank you for everything. Please read the letter. Now, I have to go. My flight is leaving soon, and I have to catch it.”

He picks up his suitcase, checks his pocket to make sure that his pocket watch is there, and goes to step past her. Jo grabs his sleeve tightly, making him look at her.

“Will you ever come back?” She asks him. He can see in her eyes that she knows that there’s nothing she can do to make him stay. Even as a police officer, there’s nothing she can do to keep him here. He’s a free man, and he is choosing this.

He looks at her for a long time. “Goodbye, Jo,” he says, before he pulls out of her grasp and heads outside. The bell on the antiques door chimes for the last time and he takes a deep breath in, trying to steady himself and refusing to look backwards as he steps towards the curb to flag down a cab.

He has a plane to catch.

~*~

Jo watches as Henry gets into the back of a cab. His dark hair disappears and then the car drives off, taking Henry with it.

She runs a hand down her face and turns back to the table where she’d put the letter down. God, it’s so like Henry, leaving a letter of farewell, of all things. A letter.

She picks it up, staring at the neatly printed name on the envelope. Handwriting that she suspects she’s never going to see again in the reports from the ME’s office.

She swallows as she slides the letter out of the envelope. It’s on heavy, old style paper, and it looks like it was written with a fountain pen.

She bites her lip before opening it to the first page and beginning to read the neat writing there.

~

_Jo,_

_I’m sorry. You will likely get tired of me writing that in these next few pages, but it is true. I am completely and utterly sorry that it turned out this way._

_Jo, for the last few years I’ve been lying to you. I’m not who you think I am. I’ve been lying to you, to everyone in the precinct, and everyone in the world. Only one person knew me for who I truly am, and he’s gone now. My beloved Abraham was taken from this world, and from me, too soon. I am not the same person now that both he and Abigail are gone. I doubt I ever will be again._

_Jo, I was not born thirty seven years ago, as it claims on my birth certificate. Which is fake, by the way. As is my degree, my ID, everything about me. I have no idea how I actually wasn’t found out by the NYPD in a background check, truth to be told. You need to upgrade your security checks._

_I digress. Jo, this is hard for me to write, and it will be even harder for you to understand. I’m not sure what you are probably thinking, but to hazard a guess it is most likely along the lines of ‘I don’t understand, how could he be saying all of this?’ And yet it is true. Please believe me._

_There is only one thing you need to know about me, that will likely explain all lingering questions that you have at the back of your mind, as well as all the ones I’ve raised in this letter alone. And that thing is this –_

_Jo, I am immortal._

_Now, you likely don’t believe me. I do not blame you – I sometimes wake up in the morning and don’t believe it. And yet it is true. I was born on the 19 th of September, 1779. The Morgans, my family, were a wealthy family in those times, but our money was based on the slave trade. _

_Now you have to understand, I don’t not die. I die very regularly. My first death was onboard_ The Empress of Africa _, in 1814. If you remember,_ The Empress _was discovered recently, and we based a case around it. You even went out with Isaac, the man who funded the finding of my family’s ship._

_Whenever I die, I always come back, naked, in the nearest large body of water. In New York, that generally means the East River. You know all the public indecency charges I’ve collected over the years? Every one of those correlates to a death. Abraham usually came to pick me up with new clothes, so I avoided them most of the time. When approaching someone to ask for their cellular phone when naked and wet, however, there’s only a fifty percent chance that they’ll give it to you to make a call. The other fifty is them calling the police, which has happened too many times for my liking._

_I’m rambling. I’m sorry, but this is likely the last thing I will ever say to you, and I don’t want it to end. Over these years we’ve become close, and I will miss you. This period of my life has been one of the most stable in all my long years, and I know there will be a time in the future when I will long for it. You might be long buried by then, but I suspect it will happen sooner than that. I will miss you._

_I do not even know if you believe me or not. I hope you do. I hope that you believe me, and that you don’t think that this is some last attempt at… I don’t even know. I am not insane, I promise you that. Maybe in the future, and I’ve had some times in the past when I’ve doubted my own mind, but not now. I am clear of thought, I promise you that. I grieve for my son, but my mind is made up. I’ve already spent too much time in New York. I keep coming back here, for some reason. I suspect that it will be a long time before I return here, though. Things are different this time._

_I’ve seen so much, Jo. Too much, I sometimes think. It wears on me, like steadily running water can wear through rock, given enough time. And I’ve had so much time. Humans are not meant to live as I have. I’ve seen both World Wars, lived through them vividly. I’ve been tortured, I’ve been killed, I have died so many times. Human greed is what has caused me the most pain in this life, I think. Greed for longer years, or just perhaps longer lasting youth. There have been too many people who have wanted what I have for their own gain. If I could give this curse away, I would. If I could die on the board of_ The Empress _, shot through the heart, like I should have done, I would._

_I am so tired._

_So tired of running. Do you know that in 1869 I was hanged three times in one year for witchcraft? Disappearing from the noose probably did nothing to assure them that I wasn’t guilty. I run, and I run, and I run, but the past is a bloodhound on my scent, and she won’t let me go, no matter how fast I go or how well I hide._

_I only know one other person like me. Adam. He was my stalker a few years ago, although he calls himself my fan, and he was the one who set me up to kill a man in my basement. I’ve seen him die, and disappear just like me. He says he was killed over 2000 years ago, and so far I have seen nothing to disprove that. He worries me. I wonder if I will be as insane as he is in the future. I can only hope not._

_I’m probably not doing a good job of explaining myself. My suitcase is packed, and I am just about to leave for my plane. I’m sorry for leaving, but soon people here will begin to start questioning why I don’t age, and I’ve had too many close calls of getting caught on film dying. I fear what the digital age will bring for me. Perhaps I will emerge from some war torn country in fifty years and claim that I have no identification because it was lost in a bombing. Perhaps it will work. Perhaps I will be brought back to a lab, where I will be studied, again. I’ve already ridden that horse, and we do not get along very well at all._

_Let me tell you some more, so that you can understand better. I met Abigail and Abraham at the same time. It was 1945, and the camps in Germany were being liberated. She was standing there, smiling at the most perfect child I have ever seen in my life. I knew then that I was lost. I was only a medic, seeing to all the injuries that I could, but Abigail and Abraham stole my heart from the first second we saw each other._

_Abraham, of course, noticed that his father didn’t age. He was sharp, but he didn’t say anything until he was fifteen. We sat down, and explained everything to him. Abigail was already noticeably older than me._

_She left me, when people were starting to mistake her for my mother. I believe that she thought it would be best for both of us if I didn’t have to see her die. That’s what I tell myself, at least. It’s what I have to believe, for my own sanity. I didn’t cope with it well, at first. Without Abraham, I don’t know if I could have pulled myself out of the hole that I dug myself into gladly, trying to find her. I owe him everything, and now he is gone. They’re both gone. I gave up religion a long time ago, and it is times like this that I’m glad that I did. I am angry enough at the Universe as it is._

_It is simply not fair. A father should not have to bury his son. A father should not have to see his son grow old while he remains the same. It is a cruel path that Fate has bade me walk, but walk it I must._

_Jo, I’ve enjoyed our work together. I like to think that I’ve had as much of an effect on you that I know you’ve had on me. Thank you for everything that you’ve done for me over the years. I doubt I will forget it anytime soon._

_Go on with your life. Live it to the full. You were meant for more than breakfasts and dinners at your desk. I know that you can do it. And do me a favour, and look after Lucas for me. I worry about him, sometimes._

_I don’t know if you believe any of this, but I can only hope. This is the truth. I have lied to you for a long time, but you know everything now. Please, believe me Jo. I cannot die, however much I might wish to, and I do not age. I have buried my son, and I need to start again. I’m sorry for leaving you with only a letter, but if I attempted to say good bye in person, I think you would have tried to stop me._

_Thank you for everything._

_Henry Morgan_

~

Jo stares at the flourishes on the signature. Then she rereads the note. And then she reads it a third time.

She doesn’t know what to think.

She looks at the door to the store and wonders why she just let him walk out of her life. Gone, probably forever.

She stares at the words on the page until they start to dance in front of her eyes and then she tries not to cry.


End file.
